Old world and New World encounters are the subject of this movie. European settlers corrupt the land and abuse the Native peoples already residing in the "New World."
Positive Role Models
very little
It is hard to call out anything in this film as role model worthy because of the incredibly culturally sensitive material being explored. Needless to say, wrongs of the past do not exist in a vacuum, and this film can certainly instigate a discussion between you and your teen about America's shared colonial past.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this film is focused on a clash of civilizations, European and Native Indian, beginning in 1607. Depicted largely in metaphorical imagery of woods, fields, rivers, and the settlement called Jamestown, the movie shows the difficulty of intercultural communication. It includes battle scenes (with guns, spears, tomahawks, explosions, and bloody bodies), as well as long, lyrical (non-narrative) passages that might be uninteresting for some younger viewers. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
If you understand Native American culture and spirituality
this movie is the first and best movie I've seen that portrays NA spirituality, integration with the natural world, family and tribal life, generosity and intelligence. The long nature scenes and internal dialogs of Pocahontas and John Smith are the best parts of the film but persons who lack self-awareness, have never tried to understand another culture nor lived in one will lack the tools to understand what they are seeing. This is the central point of the film. And the cause of conflict. Time and timelessness are also cultural constructs- you live by the minute hand of the clock or you live larger, through the cycles of the moon, the seasons. Displays of reverence for the sacred through ceremony are also Native American symbols most non- Native Americans will totally miss. So I would say that the more boring or slow you find this movie to be is a clear indication of how little time you probably spend in nature, how little understanding or patience you have of other cultures and how little time you've spent contemplating your own. Fellow white people, get off your phones, the internet, and go out and meet some people who are completely different from yourselves. Spend time in nature without having to kill a fish or bird or deer for sport. And thank The Great Mystery, make an offering of thanks (tobacco) to the creatures that gave up their life to sustain you, for the fresh air, the clean waters, the trees and plants that shelter and heal you, for the sun and rain that nourish your gardens, every moment of every day...and it will change you for the better.
What's the Story?
Ambitious and gorgeous, Terrence Malick's THE NEW WORLD revisits the myth of the circa-1607 romance between Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher), revealing its characters' yearnings in landscapes and voiceovers. The romance occurs as Smith stays for months with the tribe -- whom the Europeans deem "the naturals" -- in an ostensible effort to help his own men survive, to win favor and learn strategies of living with the land rather than pitted against it. But even though Smith extols his hosts' communal values ("They no jealousy, no sense of possession"), he can't absorb them. Instead, he is bedeviled by his ambition, enticed by a new voyage to discover the Indies, leaving behind a lie for Pocahontas, that he's died at sea, so he never need return to her. Though she mourns for her lost love, she agrees to marry the solid, loyal, unexciting John Rolfe (Christian Bale).
Malick's film is of two minds. On one hand, it refutes this pretty story by making Smith overtly a problem, an arrogant adventurer. On another, it offers poetic images to suggest she continues to love this white invader even after he abandons her.
Impressionistic as his films will be, Malick brings to bear on this saga a fascinated (and at times, fascinating) patience, as his camera wafts over natural woodsy scenes or dense rainfalls. Pocahontas warns John Rolfe, "There are things you don't know, things you could not guess." Ah yes, but her ripe mystery is so captivating that he can't not want her. However Rolfe or Smith or even you comprehend her, Pocahontas' tragedy is just this desire, that has so little to do with her.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the myth of John Smith and Pocahontas: given that she was probably 10 or 11 when they first met (and she saved him from death ordered by her father, a king), why might stories persist that theirs was a romance, based in mutual love and interests?
How does this version differ from the 1995 animated Disney musical, Pocahontas?
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